Wilhelm Research Log

Question:
Why did the Wilhelm family relocate to Harrison, AR?
I started with the first census that I could find them on – the 1910 one. I am still searching for this family on the 1900 census. Anyways, in 1910, George W. Wilhelm was a 40 year old stavemiller/lumberjack, with his 30 year old wife Celia B. Wilhelm and their children, Frant, age 22, Arthur, age 17, Homer, age 13, Loren O, age 5, Alene, age 1, and “baby”, in Olyphant, Arkansas. There was a tiny sawmill in Olyphant at the time, not many people lived there. Possibly because they were frightened off by the train robbery a decade earlier.


I then looked at the census of 1920 and I found George W. Wilhelm, his wife Celia, and their children, Lowern, Alean, Thelma, and Lee in Wiley's Cove, Arkansas. George's occupation is a lumberjack for a stave mill. I looked at Olyphant's history and Wiley's Cove history to figure out why George moved his family.

I started researching Olyphant between 1910 to 1920. I found that the state of Arkansas had declared Horseshoe Bend Lake as a natural forest. Aha! No more job for a lumberjack. Makes perfect sense.

Next, I tried to locate information on Wiley's Cove, Arkansas with not much luck. I expanded my search to the entire Searcy county. I found that Leslie, Arkansas is Wiley's Cove under a new name. So I started researching Leslie, AR history and that's when I found that as of 1906, the Ed Mays Manufacturing Company (EMMC) to Wiley's Cove right when they changed the name to Leslie, AR. They brought a lot of jobs and this answers why George moved to Wiley's Cove.

The Ed Mays Manufacturing Company had some kind of disagreement with the city of Leslie and the county of Searcy over who pays the power bill for the streetlights in their vicinity. Maxwell Mays moved the company to Harrison, AR and promised their employees that if they move too, they all keep their jobs. The company moved in 1922, so I will assume that the Wilhelm family moved in this time frame as well. Lowern was probably just turning 18, so I assume he was working for the stave mill by this time.

In 1923, EMMC withdrew their promise of steady wages because of the railroad (? need to research this aspect a bit more) and irate employees picketed. I wonder if my great grandfather Lowern was one of those picketers? I understand why they would be angry. They moved their families following a job that only disappears.

On the 1930 census, Celia appears as a widow; so George died between 1920 and 1930. I do not know if he died while in Searcy County or if he died while in Boone County.

Conclusion:
To answer my own question; the Wilhelms moved from Olyphant to Wiley's Cove a.k.a. Leslie to Harrison following their job as a stave miller.

 What is a stave miller? A stave miller is someone who makes the thin strips of wood that are bound together with circles of cooper to form barrels to ship to other companies that need the barrels for storing their product in, such as whiskey. Wow, I learned something new! And that sounds like hard work.

Further research showed that stave millers work in arduous conditions. The factory is dimly lit, there's sawdust all over, the scent of burning die casts for the binding and the smell of oil to keep the saw running smoothly when the water isn't flowing fast enough. Many people at this company got tuberculosis and died. Their spouses got meager survivor's benefits and only their spouses. At this time, Eva was already gone and Celia was raising Lowern's girls when he died of tuberculosis. I assume his sister Thelma was helping take care of him because she had TB as well. This is where my research comes to an end for now. Records after 1935 are sealed until April 12, 2012. When the government releases these records 1935-1940, I will pick up my research where I  left off.